The present invention relates to the general field of circular needling machines for making needled textile structures, and more particularly it relates to automatically feeding such machines with fiber sheets.
It is known to make a circular type needling machine for fabricating annular textile structures for constituting the fiber reinforcement of annular parts made of composite material, in particular brake disks, such as disks made of carbon/carbon (C/C) composite material for airplane brakes.
In such a needling machine, a helical fiber sheet for needling is placed on a needling table and is driven in rotation by drive means, usually friction drive means. The feed for this type of machine may be performed flat on the needling table from a sheet of material for needling that is delivered by an unwinding device that is external to the needling machine.
Document WO 02/088449 discloses a needling machine in which the fiber sheets for needling are fed automatically. For that purpose, the needling machine comprises a storage basket located above the needling table and containing the fiber sheet for needling, a set of conical rollers for continuously extracting the sheet from the storage basket, and a helical chute for taking up the sheet unwound from the storage basket and bringing it to the needling table in register with friction drive means. Nevertheless, that needling machine presents the drawback that the conical rollers for driving the fiber sheet cause the fiber sheet to slip while it is being unwound, thereby deforming the fiber sheet when it reaches the needling table.